Word Origin & History

log late 14c., of unknown origin. O.N. had lag "felled tree" (from stem of liggja "to lie"), but on phonological grounds etymologists deny that this is the root of English log. Instead, they suggest an independent formation meant to "express the notion of something massive by a word of appropriate sound." Logging "act of cutting timber" is from 1706. Logjam "congestion of logs on a river" is from 1885; in the figurative sense it is from 1890. Log cabin in Amer.Eng. has been a figure of the honest pioneer since the 1840 presidential campaign of William Henry Harrison.